The Shift...

So here I am again, on familiar ground, feeling dissociated and insignificant. Feeling demotivated and perplexed at why I am yet again feeling powerless, and slightly depressed at the thought of where I am in life, and the paths that I have taken which have led me to this point. 
Well, I know very well that the decisions I've made through the course of my life have led me to this point, in this very place that I don’t desire to be. If I had the power now, I would zap away this experience in a heart beat, without a second thought.

As I look back at my childhood, I see the endless dreams and desires. My imagination was limitless back then, and the thirst and amazement for life felt endless. Although now, it’s hard to know what those dreams were. It’s challenging to remember, as the memories have been masked with countless conditioning applied by the voices of my parents, my teachers and later my employers. The voices that spellbound my mind, and allowed me to divert away from my core passions, and disconnected me from my unlimited faith and trust in myself and ultimately in life. This disconnection from self was achieved through constant external nagging by parental and institutional establishments, setting expectations or dishing out guidance on what they believed were the right choices for me, or telling me what I should been doing, and how I should be behaving. Instead of allowing me to follow my path in my own way, making my own choices and "mistakes" under my own terms. 
But I guess following my true passions and desires was not an option back then, as the feelings of guilt and shame were overwhelming. Guilt that I should be doing what others expected of me, and shame for not achieving their approval if I strayed away from their concept of norm, and so I allowed the feelings of guilt and shame to dictate my direction in life. 
Doing what I was told I should be doing, and behaving how I was told I should be behaving. Instead of doing and behaving in a manner that was desirable to me. 
This is why I am starting to develop an aversion for the word “should”, as it implies expectation, and expectation is risky business.
The concept of expectation sets us up for disappointment, it allows us to want what we want without factoring other points of views. Expectation is risky, because it’s very subjective, and based on perception, and no two perceptions are the same. This is why expectation is selfish, because we fail to see other perspectives, as we seem to focus only on what we need and want from an individual or an experience. 
For example “I expect you to go to university and get a good job” …  This sentence (one which echo’s very vividly in my mind) has woven within it, countless limiting beliefs and expectations,  neither of which belonged to me, yet it's entrenched deep in to my psyche through its constant applications by my parents.
This is how we pick up beliefs that don’t belong to us, this is how we find ourselves in situations that are less than desirable, in a job, relationship or situations that makes us miserable and doubt ourselves.
So, at what point do we decide to make a shift? At what point do we say enough is enough, I want to be me again. I want to be what I was before I started accepting other people’s beliefs and expectations of me. How do I become happy and fulfilled again? How can I believe in the possibility of my dreams and desires again?  
Intrinsically, we create our life with our decisions, choices and level of drive and motivation. Knowing this simple, yet powerful fact, has the ability to put the power cards back in to our domain again, and with this power, we can start to allow our own self to dictate what we need.  
What I am realising now, is that life should be about asking a series of right questions, and allowing the answers to be revealed to us. Although this can be very challenging, as we expect the answers to be validated from a clear external voice. A voice of reason that knows best, such as a voice of a parent, a trusted friend, a lover, a confidant... However, the answers may be revealed in many different forms, in a shape of opportunity, life drama and crisis, breakthroughs,breakdowns, dreams or internal awareness and feelings. 
The expectation to hear a clear voice, takes me back to my point about expectations, and how limiting the concept of expectation really is. 
In order to “allow” possibilities, we must work on dropping our expectations and our need for certainty based on our limited concepts and beliefs.

So what now? How does this revelation help me? I am still in this situation. I am still surrounded by these miserable faces and voices and energies. I am still in the same place dealing with the same soulless idiots. Again and again, I find myself in similar situations, similar people, yet different faces and places. This pattern haunts me, and although I see myself as a self reflective guru who identifies patterns and works to dissolve them, dissolving this one doesn't seem to be enough here.  
The forgiveness meditation of surrounding the perceived fools in a big fluffy bubble of pink light is not working. Shifting and changing my personality to fit in with their expectations, isn't working either, as it’s making me feel inauthentic and like a fraud, whilst it knocks more off my confidence and self-esteem. Taking me farther away from my own truth and authenticity, so I find myself in darkness, yet I also feel a glimmer of light.

If life is about asking the right series of questions, here, I ask; "what am I guided to shift in order to make a huge positive impact in my life?" And with this, I allow the answer to reveal it self to me, without me holding any expectations, I allow life to show or guide me in what I need to do next.
So how will I know if it’s working? Through checking in with my emotions daily, and asking the right questions that will allow me to take the right inspired action, the type of action that has the power to potentially lead me to emotional freedom, and to a life which is more authentic and aligned. 
So with this, I let the self inquiry begin, as without the emotional reflection and self inquiry, our situation becomes similar to that of a hamster’s wheel, and life feels more like a cruel and unjust experience drenched with endless drama.  

With this insight, I turn inwards and start a deeper act of self love, where I start to explore my psyche through this line of daily inquiry. Making self inquiry my daily practice, and allowing the emotions experienced that day to reveal the truth behind what is stored deep within my psyche, enabling me to understand the dissociated parts of myself. 
This is the first step in to aligning with who I truly am. From this space of wholeness, life has the potential to become a tool for which we use as a means of self discovery and self exploration. 
We will begin to appreciate the ebbs and flows of life, and see the wider aspects of everything. 
We begin to appreciate that our experiences are simply a metaphoric creation of our psyche, and therefore to change the metaphor (or experience), we must begin this journey by altering the perceptions stored in the psyche. 
This simple act may just invoke the shift we need to start thriving in the areas where we feel stuck and powerless ...